‘I can’t stand whisky snobbery’

Whisky critic Jim Murray’s first day off in five weeks is also the same day as my interview with him. Murray has been busy touring North America and Scotland to research the 2020 edition of The Whisky Bible. The writer, consultant blender, and a full-time whisky critic has dedicated his career to writing about the spirit. Produced annually, The Whisky Bible provides tasting notes and ratings for around 1,000 newly released or previously undiscovered whiskies, with nearly 4,000 brands being reviewed overall.

Murray who gave up his job as a journalist in 1992 to pursue full-time writing about whisky, has tasted 30,000 to 50,000 whiskies till date. For the 2020 edition, he will taste close to 20,000 variants. Murray’s career started young, when he was nine, an uncle handed him a glass of Teacher’s as a lark. Of course, Murray’s demand for seconds was nipped in the bud by his aunt. “It was a hitchhiking trip in Scotland in 1975 when I managed to go to the Talisker distillery,” he recounts. “They allowed me to come in and opened a cask of whisky in the warehouse for me. I tasted it straight from the cask, 55% of alcohol by volume. I was 17. Suddenly, the world just seemed like a beautiful place. Since then, I have tasted every whisky I could possibly find.”

He follows a very precise method, constantly going back to his previous records, and following different steps of grading on a scale of 100 for each whisky. “If people have an open mind, their whisky lives are going to change,” Murray promises. The critic has made it a point to make notes about every whisky he’s ever tasted, “[Whiskies] may look the same, they may smell the same, but I notice strange differences. It’s like being in a group of people wearing the same football kit, but they all do something slightly different,” he shares. In 1985, Murray lost all his early notes when someone broke into his car and stole his bag. He deeply regrets the incident, lamenting how he would have loved to look at those notes to check how certain whiskies tasted 24 years ago.

Changing trends

How does Murray manage to write about just one subject, year after year? “It can be exhausting and frustrating sometimes, but it is fascinating,” he says. “The first whisky book (he’s also authored a book on a football club) I wrote allowed me to write about the distilleries, their geography, etc. It’s impossible to visit every distillery today as there are so many.” What keeps Murray going is that his research steers people towards great whisky, and away from bad whisky. This is important for him, as whiskies are expensive.

The biggest change that Murray has observed in the industry is that accountants now have the biggest say, which means that the quality in certain quarters has gone down, “Management has been very poor, especially in the Scotch whisky [segment]. In the early ’90s in Kentucky, I remember telling distillers there will be an upswing in the demand for bourbon and rye. They thought I was insane as they had seen nothing but a decline since the 1920s. Some did take me seriously; others thought I was a mad Englishman. Today, the bourbon industry can’t produce enough to meet the demand. This is partly because people have become more tolerant and more interested in their own whisky. The big move in America towards single malts has been controlled because people have rediscovered bourbon,” he shares.

Respecting taste

This is also why Indian whiskies, like Paul John and Amrut are appreciated, because a spirit’s origins no longer matters. “Once upon a time, Indian whisky was considered inferior. But then the bible gave it a higher score, and people who decided to taste them were surprised as to how good it was. [When I started writing about whisky] I was conscious that I was going to treat all whiskies as equal, I can’t stand whisky snobbery. Great whisky is a great whisky irrespective of where it is made, and I think people have woken up to that,” he asserts. Murray says some of the younger players who are producing good titles are distilleries in Eastern Europe, France, Canada, Japan and Australia.

Murray credits his values to his days as a journalist and says when he covered sports, he knew that he would upset players or their management. But he was unwilling to compromise on his integrity by writing to please. “One of the annoying things about the bible is that I have given awards to people whom I thoroughly dislike, and there are also people whom I have amazing respect for, and they have never won a thing. I just judge whisky, and if it means I’ll upset people, then I will,” he states.

The food conundrum

Murray is a purist when it comes to whisky, and only does blind tastings. He doesn’t like to have water or food with his whisky during tastings, and says that pairing whisky and food is “bull***t”. “I have turned down TV programmes, and a lot of money. Look at Indian food, and how spicy it is, how can you pair something that is searing your palate? Distillers want to sell their product, they don’t care how it happens,” he emphasises.

Murray’s work takes him all over the world, yet he’s only vacationed once since 1992 for a week in Arizona with his girlfriend. But his travel memories are anecdotal treasures. One trip, that stands out is to Scotland’s famous Ardbeg distillery, a tourist attraction today. “I used to holiday there, when no one had ever heard about it. I would spend the entire day walking around the grounds on my own. It’s so romantic and beautiful. I remember distilleries from before they became famous, I bonded with the soul of the place before tourism changed them,” he reminisces. Murray also considers the Ardbeg 1974 stock (which he first tried in 1984) as the best whisky he has had till date. Don’t take this pick lightly, as Murray has around 20,000 whiskies in his personal collection.